The Fund’s Divestment Efforts One Year Later

One year after announcing the Rockefeller Brothers Fund’s plan to divest from fossil fuels, President Stephen Heintz said its portfolio’s exposure to oil, coal, and tar sands has been reduced from about seven percent at the beginning of 2014 to just over four percent. Heintz told CNN Money that the decision to divest was primarily a moral: one: “It became increasingly uncomfortable to be fighting global warming on the one hand and then investing in businesses that cause global warming,” he said. Heintz was also interviewed by Al Jazeera for its Earthrise program, about 350.org and its efforts to build an international divestment campaign.

Other organizations are pledging to divest, including one of the world’s largest financial asset managers, Germany’s Allianz, which announced it would shift investments in coal to renewable wind resources instead. Chair, Valerie Rockefeller, commented about the RBF’s divestment efforts during Germany’s ZDF frontal21’s exclusive story on Allianz.